October 7, 2011

Schrodinger`s cat

We are all frightened of something. It could be the dentist, the dark, snakes, spiders or the bogey man hiding under the bed. But for true terror we need only observe the clowns that claim to rule this sorry nation.

After almost 18 months of making us laugh with their knock-about jolly japes, hilarious slapstick and farcical policies doomed to failure, the Whitefaces, Augustes, Pierrots and Pierettes are finally showing their true, sinister colours. Those that sufferer from coulrophobia may wish to escape this superposition by sealing themselves into a steel chamber with only a Geiger counter attached to a sturdy hammer, a very small radioactive isotope and a flask of hydrocyanic acid for company. Being simultaneously dead and alive, it would seem that the coalition have killed the cat.

So the Conservatives headed off to the city that had previously hosted the Peterloo Massacre in 1819, the first meeting of the Trades Union Congress in 1868 and lots of people helping themselves to trainers a few months ago. Manchester, known as “Cottonopolis” during the Industrial Revolution, witnessed the first splitting of an atom and the first programmable computer but is now better known for multi-millionaire whoring, ugly footballers and equally rich and ugly players who refuse to play. Add to this the spectacle of the Tory comedy charabanc being driven into the circus ring and having all the doors, wheels and passengers fall off accompanied by a puff of smoke, and Manchester is clearly the place for a good rib-tickling laugh.

Up jumped Biffo Pickles, a clown that does not require grotesque make-up, to talk about curtailing “ridiculous” trade union rights in local authorities and the the importance of moving on itinerant travellers. His “refuge” (his word) initiative is likely to result in more wheelie bin related cat incarcerations. Then another whey-faced loon, Bozo Gove did a comedy song and dance praising his paymaster, the very frightening Rupert Murdoch. Ozzy the Chancellor clown did a stand up routine about “credit easing” for small businesses. With debt being the single biggest threat to the very fabric of the universe, he offered the vague notion of small businesses borrowing money from the government and so be in debt to the government rather than the puppet master bankers. There is obviously profit to be had from debt. The present government has not reduced the level of borrowing that brought us to this sorry state of affairs which, until just a few weeks ago, was the singular fault of Gordon Brown. Now it seems that “global conditions” are the reason we are all shopping at Poundland and eating oven chips. Ozzy made no mention of this or an economy at a standstill and about to go into reverse or his instruction to the Bank of England to inject a further £75billion of printed money to avoid the custard pie of insolvency. In 2009, from the safety of opposition, Ozzy said that quantitative easing, printing money to you and me, was “the last resort of desperate governments when all other policies have failed”. Plan A is a strategy to protect the pathetic reputation of a man that has never done an honest days work in his privileged life.

The laughs continued. Planning controls in the green belt are to be relaxed, health and safety legislation is “ridiculous” and will be reformed resulting in more people suffering injury and even death. Reforms to employment law will deny people from claiming unfair dismissal, people who are ill, people with disabilities and people who are vulnerable will be forever branded as scroungers. They will face the grim reaper in the form of cabinet ministers wearing the motley of Canio in Pagliacci and will probably weep joke tears and squirt comedy flowers at the realisation of ultimate foolishness. Crocodile tears, however, are not enough.

We were then treated to some cunning stunts performed by the Home and Justice secretaries. Smokey Ken Clarke pirouetted the stage with a very large plank known as the Human Rights Act but missed as the May Queen bent to tie the laces of her very expensive shoes. Unfortunately, she stood up too soon and was smacked firmly in the face with a half Bolivian cat. The gag was really funny, but will lead to Smokey Ken being forced to run away from the circus and join a respectable law practice. Mrs May will be allowed to continue telling lies.

The grand finale was reserved for the Harlequin in chief, Dopey Dave. Having disclosed the contents of his act to the newspapers as a cue sheet for standing ovations from the faithful, a few phone calls from the editors of the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and the Times resulted in a major re-write of his speech. Paying off our credit card bills was not such a good idea after all as, and credit to them, middle England and this wretched government lives on credit. Delegates paying their hotel, drinks and meals bills with plastic would be horrified. There are rumours of a small group of Tories who bought a round of drinks costing £80 and then legged it leaving the young waitress, on minimum wage, to have her wage deducted for the Bacardi Breezers and Mojitos. We are clearly all in this together.

Dopey Dave, however, addressed the issue of inequality in education but seemed happy to defend the rise in tuition fees and the certainty of students starting adult life saddled with, guess what, debt. When talking of young people, the camera tastefully cut away to the young lovelies carefully selected to sit on the front row or to the fragrant Samantha, surrounded by the only three or four black and brown faces in the hall. Dopey attempted to end his speech with Churchillian rhetoric encouraging us to “fight” for Britain. Well. sorry Dave, the only people I shall be fighting is you and your idiotic, destructive coalition.

Printing money, throwing human and employment rights into the bin, targeting people with disabilities, evicting travellers and clamping down on trade unions seems oddly familiar. It is, of course, completely absurd to compare this Tory led coalition to the insanity of the Weimar Republic in 1932, but with the news from the CERN Large Hadron Collider that particles may have been observed moving faster than the speed of light, time travel may indeed be possible. Schrödinger’s cat and the moggy belonging to the mistress of Liberal Democrat John Hemming might yet live again.

It is absurd to liken this government to the rise of evil in 1930`s Germany for one major reason. The difference is that Hitler was democratically elected with a massive popular vote. This coalition was not. Hand me the hammer and the flask of cyanide and then send in the clowns.